The Book of Death (Bourbon Kid 4)

it. He
pushed the lock down on the door and poked his tongue out at the ugly
schoolgirl as Flake put her foot down on the accelerator and pulled away.
    ‘Hold on,’ yelled Sanchez. ‘Pull
over by that book.’
    Flake drove the car down the
road, swerving on the ice as she went, to where the book was lying face down in
the pool of snow. Sanchez unlocked the door again and opened it, leaning out so
he could grab the book. Flake slowed the car down and they came to a stop right
by the book. Despite appearing to have no driving skills whatsoever (in Sanchez’s
opinion) Flake had in fact hit her mark spectacularly. He reached down and
grabbed a hold of the book and hauled it up from the street by its front cover.
He plonked it on his lap and slammed the car door closed again, then he turned
to Flake.
    ‘Okay, floor it!’ he ordered.
    Flake didn’t wait to be told
twice. She accelerated off down the middle of the road towards the city centre
leaving the chasing girl scouts way behind.
    ‘Are you okay?’ she asked, not
taking her eyes off the road. ‘What happened back there? Why are those girls
chasing you?’
    Sanchez inspected the book in
his hands. The cover was damaged, torn and scratched in several places, but
worst of all, upon opening it he discovered that most of the pages were sopping
wet.
    ‘Dammit, Flake,’ he groaned.
‘The book is ruined. Your bad driving might have cost me the reward money. And
Jessica will be annoyed.’
    ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to. It
looked like you were in trouble, so I didn’t have time to show any caution.’
    ‘It was nothing I couldn’t
handle.’
    He blew hard on a few of the
pages in a vain attempt to dry them out. Flake did not respond, and after a few
seconds of flicking through pages of the book and tutting, he suddenly became
aware of the fact that he may have been a little short with her. This was
confirmed when he heard her sniffing. He glanced over at her out of the corner
of his eye. She was close to tears. She was trying to hide it, or hold it in,
but she was definitely having a bit of a sob. Sanchez sighed.
    ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked.
    ‘Rick is dead. Someone killed
him to get their hands on that book.’
    Sanchez was taken aback. He’d
given Rick a bottle of liquor the day before. What a waste!   And who the hell was willing to kill to
get their hands on the book? ‘Oh shit,’ he blurted. ‘Do you know who killed
him?’
    Flake shook her head. ‘No, but
his neighbour Crazy Annie said she heard something last night.’
    ‘Annie McFanny?’
    ‘Yeah. I saw her this morning.
She was absolutely hysterical.’
    ‘Why what did she say?’
    ‘She said she heard Rick being tortured
all night.’
    ‘How’s that funny?’
    ‘It’s not. She said that the
killer was after a book.’
    ‘The Book of Death?’
    ‘I don’t know, but that’s the
only book Rick had so I thought they might head to the library, then you’d be
in trouble.’
    ‘Did Annie see the killer?’
    ‘I couldn’t really tell. She
said she thought it was Santa Claus and his helpers.’
    ‘Whoa!’ said Sanchez. ‘Santa
Claus, you say?’
    ‘Yeah. Well, she is crazy. Let’s
face it, half of what she says is nonsense. It’s just hard to tell which half
sometimes, you know?’
    ‘I think she may have been
right.’
    ‘About what? Santa?’
    ‘Yeah.’
    ‘Really?’
    ‘Uh huh. Some big fucking
vampire dressed in a Santa outfit just tried to get the book from me. He had a
hip flask of green liquid with him too. The kind that causes paralysis.’
    Flake gasped. ‘Oh my God, Rick
had green lips when I found him. Where’s this Santa guy now?’
    ‘I gave him a taste of his own
medicine.’
    ‘The green stuff?’
    ‘Yep. Then I set fire to his
beard. He went up in flames. Pretty sure he’s dead now.’
    Flake slowed the car down as
they approached a red light at a pedestrian crossing. The car slid on the ice
and cruised right through the crossing, narrowly missing a teenage boy who was
crossing the road. It eventually came to a stop on the other side of the crossing
and Flake then accelerated away again. ‘Rick would be pleased,’ she said wiping
a tear from her cheek.
    ‘Yeah. Those little girls
weren’t too grateful though.’
    ‘Oh, that’s why they were
chasing you?’
    ‘Yeah. Bitches.’
    Flake took a right turn. ‘We make
a pretty good pair of cops, don’t we?’ she said.
    ‘Huh?’
    ‘Well, you’ve just located the
missing